A card game

Ether's Crossroads

Getting Started

Ether's Crossroads is a card game for two players. Each player brings a deck of playing cards with both Jokers, and the table needs a handful of dice: d2, d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20. Cards are soldiers, knights and royalty placed on a field of lines; dice decide every fight; the dead become souls that can be spent as mana on spells, or raised again from the shared grave; and the moon turns one phase every round.

  1. Raise your Ace. Each player takes one Ace and one Jack from their own deck (or from the Ether, when the specials are set to wait there). The Ace goes on any tile of your backline you choose, with the Jack inside it.
  2. Draw. Each player draws 2d4 cards from their own shuffled deck. A hand holds six cards at most.
  3. Roll for the opening. Both players roll. The highest roll sets up first, placing any opening cards on their own two lines, then the other player sets up. The highest roller also takes the first turn.
  4. Take turns. Every turn runs Optional Draw → Prep → Attack. In the draw phase, roll a d4 as many times as you like and draw that many cards. In the prep phase, place, move and sacrifice cards and cast spells. In the attack phase, each of your stacks may attack once. The very first turn of the game has no draw phase.
  5. Fight with dice. A stack fights with the score of its best card: the card's value plus its die. Stacking cards does not add their scores together, but every card in a stack is another hit it can take.
  6. Gather souls. Sacrificed cards become your soul pile, worth up to six mana (a card from your hand is worth its Ether price − 1d2 + 1, rolled as you sacrifice it, but a card that costs 1 is always worth 1; a card on the field is worth its soul), which pays for spells such as Divine Odds, Clairvoyance or a King Conjure. Once a turn, the free Grave Blessing lets you roll for the dead.
  7. Watch the moon. The New Moon gives back cards from the grave; the Full Moon takes a stack of two or a card, or 2d2 + 2 mana. Rarely, the Full Moon turns to a Blood Moon.
  8. Win. Destroy every card the other player has on the field, or leave them with no deck, no hand and no soul pile when their turn ends: an economic victory.

The full rules, including every card's role, the stacking formula, all the spells, the moon and its events, are under All Rules. Play Game runs the game in the browser.

Game Modes

Local

Two to four players share one device, and any seat can be a computer. Each player picks a Substance, a color and a symbol, which marks every card they own. The board turns to face whoever is playing, and the screen goes dark between turns until the next player confirms they hold the device. Everyone sees every die.

Versus Computer

You against one to three computers, written as plain code rather than a language model. Each turn the computer weighs offense against defense from the field and the decks. Easy plays loosely and makes mistakes. Medium is balanced and a real fight. Hard plays the Joker for souls, stacks Aces for the Grave Blessing, keeps its own deck full and eats away at yours.

Survival

Tower defense for one to four players. You raise your Ace and its Jack, and the Horde comes: a new group every round from a fresh deck, growing in number every round and in strength every five, with Jacks, Queens and Kings from round six and Jokers from round eleven. The Horde has no spells, hand or grave. The moon still turns. You lose when your last card on the field falls, and the round you reach is your score.

Substances

A Substance is what you play as. Each one changes your deck, your spells or your limits. Every Substance in full.

Beginner
The learning Substance: a bigger hand, an early army, and one free shield.
Angel Machine
Antony's mech: Samson fights, and Antony rises from his corpse.
Satan
One overwhelming card, and a curse that turns a stack against itself.
Binah
The Southern tribe of the Euclids: Slavemasters capture, and Slaves shoot.
Jester Fool
The Tree, the Puppets and the BullGoat: a living base that feeds you mana.
Tiphareth of Kether
The Northern tribe of the Euclids: Traffickers chain souls and sell them.
Lucifer & Ouroboros
Delusions: blind yourself for mana, then blind your enemy and starve them.
The Leviathan
The black serpent: it rises onto the moon and takes a toll every New Moon.
The Firmament
Master of the sky: it hangs Heavenly Bodies in the moon's place.
Yaldabaoth
The Demiurge: it eats the sky and the dead, and brings Saturn.

More players, maps and options

With three or four players the field is a 7 by 7 square by default: free-for-all, or two against two with teammates side by side, across, or sharing one end. The battle maps are the Keep, the Sahel, the Forest, the Dungeon and the River, all at night. Before a game you can set the field size, the decks, the specials, the starting mana, the sky, the Bank, Demons, crystals, fog of war and more. Every option.